All posts tagged ‘deck-building’

Puzzle Strike is a very cool deck-building game that uses bags of chips instead of decks of cards. But what really sets it apart isn’t so much the chips, which are kind of a fun gimmick but don’t actually change the mechanics. It’s the fact that each player gets to be a different character, starting with three unique character chips that have their own strengths and weaknesses. I reviewed the original game in 2011, and then wrote about the Upgrade Pack early this year, which introduced version 1.1 of the characters. Designer David Sirlin is constantly tweaking and rebalancing the characters to make them viable for tournament play, so there were some small changes that reflected that.

Overview: Oh noes! John Wilkes Booth has stolen Abe Lincoln’s hat and disrupted the time-space continuum. It’s up to you to defeat Booth and his minions (laser sharks, puking turtles, and luchadors) with your trusty Beardarang and meat-based weaponry. Pixel Lincoln is a deck-building card game based on a sidescrolling platformer video game based on a card game inspired by old Nintendo games. Got that? Trust me: it’s a riot.

Players: 2 to 4

Ages: 10 and up

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Retail: $25 on Kickstarter (other reward levels available)

Rating: 14 out of 16 bits. (Or something like that.) This review is based on a demo version which is not entirely finalized: it felt unbalanced and at times overly difficult, but we still had a blast and laughed a lot playing it. A little fine tuning will make this just right.

Who Will Like It? If you’re a fan of deck-building games and old-school video games, then you’ll probably want to go kick in for a copy of Pixel Lincoln. It really does capture the feel of a side-scrolling videogame, including the ridiculous enemies and cheat codes.

On my list of Best Board Games of 2011, I gave Eaten by Zombies an honorable mention, for combining two of my favorite flavors: deck-building and zombies. The original game looks great and does a great job of making you feel like you’re really trying to survive the zombie hordes, scavenging for supplies, fighting them off when you can and running away when you have to.

There’s a new stand-alone expansion coming out soon: In Cahoots. While you can combine it with your original set (expanding it to 6 players), you can also play it as a two-player game by itself. The two new characters are Dean and Nancy, each with their own Heavy Stick, Hide, and Sandwich cards for the starting deck. The regular zombies are included, as well as a new zombie set. This particular zombie set has a “reveal” icon on each card: when these zombies show up in the horde, you automatically add another zombie to the horde.

Just a reminder: Thunderstone Advance hits shelves today! If you read my review and pre-ordered the game at a Level Up preview event last week, you’ll be getting the Avatars mini-expansion. If not, it’ll be available for about $10. So what is it?

The expansion comes with twenty-five cards, five sets of five Avatars each. Each player gets a set of five: Cleric, Thief, Wizard, Ranger, and Fighter. After the game is set up, each player chooses one card secretly, and then everyone reveals simultaneously. The avatar you choose now represents you in the game, and gives you a permanent ability throughout the game. For instance, the Thief can buy weapons and items for less gold; the Ranger can switch positions of adjacent monsters in the dungeon hall.

Also, the avatars can be leveled up in the Village by spending XP. It’s not cheap: four or five XP, depending on the avatar, but these can give you hefty bonuses. For instance, the Level 2 Fighter can equip a weapon even if there aren’t enough heroes revealed — because now you’re carrying the weapon. The Cleric can spend XP to destroy cards as a Spoils effect. So far I’ve found that the Fighter, Thief, and Ranger have been pretty popular choices — the Wizard and Cleric are more useful in setups with a lot of spells and disease-bearing monsters, respectively.

Is it worth the ten bucks? If you like Thunderstone, I think so. It doesn’t change up the rules much but adds another layer of role-playing and strategy to the game, and they can even be used with the original series of games and expansions, too. I usually don’t throw them in for somebody just learning the game, but I’ll definitely use them any time I’m playing with experienced players. So far I don’t believe they’re available for purchase, but check with your local game store — they should be coming soon.

I’ve gotten a chance to play Thunderstone Advance several times in the past week, including teaching it to three new players, and the advantages of this reboot are evident. (The only thing they didn’t include which I miss is the turn summary cards, so I’ll get those out of my old sets.) I’m looking forward to getting out some of my older cards and mixing them in (especially some of the heroes) but the base set has been a lot of fun to play with.

While you’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of Thunderstone Advance, I’ll catch you up on the last two expansions from the original series. These both came last summer, when I was in the middle of a major move and had to pack up my games for way too long, so I never got around to reviewing them. Better late than never, right? These are expansions only, so you would still need one of the stand-alone sets (either the original or Dragonspire) to use them.

Stalk tokens from Thornwood Siege

Thornwood Siege

Thornwood Siege was released in June 2011. It adds another 284 cards: 1 Thunderstone, 7 new Hero types, 5 Monster groups, and 14 village cards. It also added some cardboard tokens to keep track of stalking and to make adding up your light a little easier. The two new rules are Stalk and Raid.

Overview: Since the initial release of Thunderstone, AEG has published expansions for the deck-building dungeon-crawling card game at a feverish pace. (In fact, there have been two more expansions since Dragonspire, the last one I reviewed, but my move last summer put a gap in my coverage.) Now, the game is getting a reboot in Thunderstone Advance, fixing many of the little snags and hiccups in the original. It’s a stand-alone game, but will work with cards from the earlier sets as well.

Rating: Superb. AEG took all of the feedback they’ve gotten from a couple years of playing with Thunderstone, and created a new version that is more legible and easier to learn, but retains the feel of the original.

Who Will Like It?Thunderstone is deck-building meets Dungeons & Dragons, so if you like both of those you’ll probabably enjoy it. Also, if you like Dominion but you want something with deeper strategy and a stronger theme, it’s worth checking out. And it goes without saying that existing Thunderstone fans will have a blast with another new set of cards.

Last year I reviewed a unique deck-building game, Puzzle Strike, which uses cardboard poker chips instead of cards. Instead of shuffling cards, you throw all your chips into a bag, shake ‘em up, and pull several out at a time to form your hand. The other difference from other deck-builders is that it simulates a puzzle-type videogame like Puzzle Fighter, in which gems pile up on your screen and you have to keep them from overflowing. It’s kind of a bizarre concept, but fun to play and worth checking out if you like deck-builders.

Sirlin Games has since released an upgrade pack, which just throws a few more things into the mix. It’s not really a full expansion, more like an accessory set, but if you’ve got Puzzle Strike already you might want to consider picking it up.

Here’s what comes in it:

3 new puzzle chips (5 copies each)

30 character chips

15 blank chips

4 play mats

4 player screens

The play mats, seen above, are like big mouse pads that just help you organize your chips. There’s a little turn order reminder in the bottom corner and a height bonus reminder on the bottom left. There’s a discard area and a spot for “ongoing” chips that have a lasting effect. The biggest aid, though, is the gem pile area — it helps you keep track of how high your gem pile is and, more importantly, helps you keep separate your gem pile from gems in your hand that you’re spending, which is one of the difficult concepts for newer players to grasp.

Earlier this summer I mentioned that the deck-building game Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer was coming to the iPad and iPhone. I finally got to give it a shot recently. I think they’ve done a good job translating the game from cards to an app, but some of my original reservations about the game still held true in either format. I won’t get into the mechanics of the game here; you can read a more in-depth look in my full review of the card game.

The app translates all of the original rules and puts them into a digital format that reproduces all of the cards as they appear in the actual game. You can play offline against computer or human opponents (up to four players per game), using a pass-and-play format. You can also play online, either against Game Center friends or against random opponents found in the game lobby, and you can have several games going at once. There is a tutorial which walks you through the first few rounds of the game, showing you what to tap and how various cards work; I ran through it and it seems clear enough, though it’s hard for me to judge what it would be like for an entirely new player since I’d already learned the card game. Continue Reading “The Deck-Building Ascension on the iPad” »

Overview: The zombiepocalypse is upon us, and the streets are no longer safe. We venture out briefly from our safe houses to scavenge for food and weapons, but the horde is growing. In this clever new deck-building game, you decide each turn whether to fight or flee … but if you fail, you’ll be Eaten by Zombies!

Please note: Eaten by Zombies is currently running a Kickstarter campaign, but I received the review set without much time left to play it thoroughly — school’s started and my gaming time is very limited this week. I’ve gotten to play it a couple times only as 2-player games, and I’ve read through all the cards and done some limited scenario-testing on my own, so consider this a semi-informed opinion.

Playing Time: 20-40 minutes (expect a bit longer the first time you play)

Retail: $25 (on Kickstarter for the base set plus a promo pack; other reward levels available)

Rating: Two horribly mutilated thumbs up! Although I’ve only scratched the surface of the game so far, I can already tell that it’s a blast to play and has some fascinating differences from other deck-building games.

Who Will Like It? If you like zombies and you like card games, you’ll really enjoy this one. But you pretty much have to be a fan of zombies — if you’re turned off by zombies I don’t think Eaten by Zombies is really going to appeal to you, despite the excellent mechanics.

Overview: A permanent darkness has fallen over the earth, and with it have come the creatures of the night: vampires and werewolves, as well as the hunters who stalk them. Nightfall is deck-building with a vengeance — the goal is to give as many wounds as you can to the other players by attacking them with your minions or playing vicious actions on them.

Players: 2 to 5

Ages: 12 and up

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Retail: $39.99

Rating: Fast and furious (these aren’t your sparkling vampires).

Who Will Like It? If your favorite cards in Dominion are the attack cards, or if you wish Thunderstone let you beat up on the other players instead of just the monsters in the dungeon, then Nightfall may be just the game you’re looking for.